The Survival of the Pagan Gods
| Author | Jean Seznec; translated by Barbara F. Sessions |
|---|---|
| Published | 1940 |
| Format | Book |
TL;DR — Jean Seznec’s classic study of how the gods of antiquity survived through the Middle Ages, in historical, moral, physical and encyclopedic traditions, into Renaissance art.
First published in French in 1940 by the Warburg Institute as La Survivance des dieux antiques; this is the Harper Torchbooks / Bollingen edition of Barbara F. Sessions’ English translation (copyright 1953, Bollingen Foundation).
Seznec’s argument is that the classical gods were never really lost in the Middle Ages and so were not “revived” by the Renaissance. They persisted through distinct interpretive traditions — the historical (euhemerism: gods as deified ancient rulers), the physical (gods as planets, in astrology), the moral (allegory) and the encyclopedic — each with its own iconography, and the book traces how the Renaissance inherited and transformed those images.
What it is: a standard work of art history and the history of ideas, from the Warburg school. In copyright; a scanned edition.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
405 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.